The present invention relates to methods of forming semiconductor devices, and more particularly, to methods of forming active regions on semiconductors substrates and to related semiconductor devices.
Continued advances in semiconductor technologies are providing higher speed and higher integration of semiconductor devices. As the integration of semiconductor device increases, feature patterns therein are becoming finer and chip size is being reduced. Relatedly, the size of active regions for the device features are being reduced, which can lead to fabrication and operational problems. For example, when a storage contact is formed on an active region in a DRAM device, it can become increasingly difficult to obtain a sufficient contact margin as the size of the active region decreases. An insufficient contact margin can deteriorate the operation characteristics, such as refresh characteristics, and reliability of the device.